Save the Last Dance (16 page)

“Maybe that person is still after you for some reason,” she said.

His eyes drifted shut, closing her out. But she needed to speak to him before he did.

“We have to get some other things straight, too. I trust you, sweetheart. You’ve been my very soul since we first met in college, and I never should have doubted you. Not all those years ago, and not now. If that woman was in your car, you had a good reason, and I don’t even need to hear it. Just get better, honey, so we can get you out of this place and bring you home where you belong.”

Someone cleared her throat, and Kate looked over her shoulder to see the nurse had returned.

“He should get some rest,” she said. “And there’s also someone here to visit who seems awfully impatient, so maybe you’ll want to talk to him.”

Kate started to rise from her chair, but Jared’s
hand caught hers and he pulled her back, his voice thick with emotion. “Stay,” he whispered.

The nurse appeared at Kate’s shoulder. “Sorry, doctor’s orders, but we’ll let her come back soon.”

“I need to tell her—” He tried to sit up but winced and fell back.

“Whatever it is, it can wait.” The nurse smiled as she picked up a syringe and injected it into the IV port. “This will help with the pain and will probably make you sleepy. Now just try to get some rest.”

S
EVERAL TABLE LAMPS
at the far end of the waiting room had been turned off. A man stood in shadows, his back turned to the door.

Kate felt a frisson of unease crawl down her spine. Yet hospital security had been alerted, and this man had made it in, so he must be all right.

If she wasn’t careful, the next thing she knew, she’d be frightened by moonbeams and butterflies.

She ventured just a few steps into the room. “Are you the gentleman who wanted to see me?”

“Not you, your husband. I’m hoping you can help.”

His voice held a false note of friendliness, and when he turned partway toward her, still in the shadows, her unease turned to foreboding.

“I’m afraid that isn’t possible,” she said. “The ICU allows families only.”

“I just want you to tell them I can go in.” He
bared his teeth in a chilling smile. “He’ll be very happy to see me, I know.”

The man exuded danger. She dropped her hands into the pockets of her blazer and found her cell phone, thankful that it had an exposed keyboard. Fingering its surface, she found and pressed the 911 speed-dial numeral that she’d programmed for emergencies. “I guess I don’t recognize you. Are you a friend or a client?”

His shoulders twitched. “Both. Now can you go ask the nurses, or not? I’d just walk on back there, but they’d probably call in the National Guard, or something.”

With good cause,
Kate thought. Had her call gone through? Would the dispatcher’s announcement also route through the sheriff’s private number? If not, it could be a long time before anyone would figure out where she was right now.

“Okay,” she said, forcing a smile. “Let me go ask and I’ll be right back.”

He turned fully toward her and loomed over her, one hand fastened on something bulky in his jacket pocket. With his collar turned up, his ball cap pulled low over his forehead and his amber-tinted glasses, it was hard to make out his features, but he definitely wasn’t smiling now. “No. I’m coming along.”

“It won’t do you any good. I was just told to
leave, so no one can get in there for another hour. But maybe they’ll let you take my turn, okay?”

“I can’t wait that long.” He shifted his weight from side to side. “Let’s go.”

She frantically searched for some way to stall. “H-how did you get past security?”

“What? You didn’t know your husband has a long-lost brother? The fool security guard didn’t even ask to see my ID.”

If a stranger burst into the ICU, Kate had no doubt that the nurses would sound the alarm system in a flash. But even if they did, how long would it take for this man to reach Jared’s bedside? What if he was the one who’d run Jared off the road, and he had a gun hidden in that pocket?

Stall him…find some way to stall.

“Okay…but I have to make a quick phone call to my clinic first.”

He grabbed her arm and propelled her toward the door. “Not now, sister.”

“I just have to tell my vet tech to…um…adjust the dosage on an IV that’s due to run out in the next five minutes. If I don’t call in time, my staff will call security to search for me all over this hospital.” She managed a rueful smile. “They’ve done it before.”

Swearing under his breath, he gripped her arm tighter. “Then make it quick. I don’t have all day.”

“Only if you let go. I have to get at my phone.”

The man hadn’t made an overt threat toward her exactly, but she could feel the waves of anger and beginnings of fear rolling off him.

She skipped the speed dial for the clinic and laboriously punched out each digit. She misdialed the number then started again.
Where were the sheriff or his deputies?
Had they gotten her first call? Didn’t they usually follow up, even if the person didn’t say anything into the phone?

Amy, ever efficient, answered on the second ring. “Kate? How’s your husband doing?”

Kate closed her eyes briefly and willed the girl to listen carefully. “I’m here at the ICU, and he’s not doing so well. He’s going to need a
lot more help
in order to get out of here.”

“What kind of help? Like more surgery?”

“I’m calling about that IV running on the Doberman.”

“Huh? We don’t
have
a Dobe here right now.”

“I need you to up the saline to 200 cc’s per hour, and start a sodium pentobarbital drip at 10 cc’s per hour.”

Amy fell dead silent for a moment, clearly processing the subtle message. “Are you in some kind of trouble?” she ventured cautiously.

“Exactly right.”

“You want me to call the cops?”

“Absolutely. STAT. Thanks, Amy. I hope to see you later.”

The intruder grabbed the phone from Kate’s hand and turned it off. “Satisfied? Now get me in there. They’ll bend the rules for you, and your husband will be real happy to hear what I have to say.”

“Of course.” She turned toward the door and upended her purse, sending the contents cascading to the floor. “Oops. Sorry.”

She dropped to her hands and knees and began laboriously corralling everything, sending lipsticks rolling even farther away, fumbling with the shower of papers.

“Get up,” the man growled. “Do that later.”

A gut feeling told her that there’d be no “later” for anyone in the ICU area if she didn’t think of something fast.

Her fingers closed around a safety syringe she’d absentmindedly dropped in her purse yesterday after using the needle on a splinter in her palm. Holding it beneath her, she unsheathed the needle and palmed the syringe to hide it. It wasn’t much, but jammed in the right place it could be a distraction.

She kept reaching for her things, one by one, putting them in her purse, until he grabbed her arm and hauled her to her feet.

“Maybe I don’t need you at all. This won’t take long and then I’ll be outta here. Loose ends are bad business, and I don’t let that happen.”

Sweat trickled down her back and her heart hammered against her ribs as she looked into his leering face. “Hear that? That’s the elevator. People are coming. How many can you deal with?”

He licked his lips and glanced nervously toward the door. “I didn’t hear anything.”

“I did. Go now, and there’s no proof you were even here. You’ve done nothing, so there could be no charges, no matter what I say. I’d just sound like some hysterical woman—and you’d be long gone.”

As if summoned by her desperate, silent plea, a distant door crashed open and at least two sets of footsteps thundered down the hall toward the ICU.

He grabbed her, encircling her chest with one viselike arm, and hauled her next to him, then jerked a handgun out of his pocket and held it at her waist, out of sight. “If this ain’t the cops, then we’re going to walk right out of here and pay your hubby a little visit. If it is, then you’re gonna be my ticket outta here.”

The footsteps out in the hallway were closer now, slowing down. Tentative.

“Please—” She took a shaky breath, hoping they could hear her. “I don’t want any trouble.”

“One false move, and you’re first,” he hissed, jamming the muzzle of the gun into her ribs. “Your choice.”

“Dr. Mathers?” The voice sounded like one of the younger deputies. “Are you having any trouble in there?”

“N-no.”

He appeared at the edge of the door and looked at Kate and the man behind her. Awareness dawned in his eyes. He looked so young—too young to be taking a chance with his life.

She hesitated, then sagged against her captor’s legs in a boneless faint. It would be impossible to imprison her with just one arm. The man cursed and stumbled back to free himself of her weight. With one fluid motion she rammed the full length of the syringe needle into the tender flesh at the back of his knee. He screamed and buckled to the floor, clawing at his leg. He threw the syringe across the room.

In a split second, the two deputies were on him. They jerked his hands behind his back and securely cuffed them. “Clark Porter, you’re under arrest, and the list of charges is getting longer every hour.”

They hauled him to his feet and started marching him toward the door. The older one
looked over his shoulder toward Kate. “Can we get your statement down at the sheriff’s office?”

She sank into a nearby chair, her own knees weak as jelly. “You bet.”

“Thanks, Doc.” He grinned. “Just remind me to never come up behind you in a dark alley.”

C
ASEY ARRIVED
just as the deputies were leaving. She stared at them, then spun toward Kate. “What happened?” Her face blanched. “What about Daddy? Is he okay?”

Kate debated about how much to say. “He’s stable. And this was the end of a lot of trouble, I hope. Porter is apparently the man who has been threatening your dad and me over some legal issues.”

“Oh,
Mom.
” Casey walked into Kate’s arms and rested her cheek against Kate’s shoulder. “You’ve been through so much. And I made everything worse, I know it.”

“Sweetheart.” Kate stepped back and held Casey’s shoulders. “You could never make anything worse. I’m so happy that you’re here.”

A sob shook the girl’s body. “I—I was sitting with him. He was unconscious, b-but I tried to tell him about…about something bad, and then the alarms went off and the nurses came, and he nearly
died right there.” Her eyes filled with tears. “I know he must have heard me somehow, and the stress—”

“
Casey.
He’s
stable
now. He’s doing fine. It was just a coincidence,” Kate soothed. “If anything, your voice would’ve helped him get through that crisis. Believe me. You mean everything in the world to your father and me, and nothing you could ever do would change that fact. Understand?
Nothing.
”

Tears spilled down Casey’s cheeks, and she shook her head slowly, her eyes filling with despair.

Kate led her over to the chairs in the far corner of the room and sat next to her, still holding her hand. “Do you want to tell me?”

Casey bowed her head, her silky blond hair falling in a curtain that hid her face.

“If we just get this over with, you’re going to feel better. I promise.”

“B-but it’s Dad who’s important right now, not me.”

“Casey…” Kate gently lifted her daughter’s chin. “Look at me. If you’re in any kind of trouble, we’ll do whatever it takes to help you.”

“You and Dad both achieved so much in school. I knew I needed to do something really good with my life, too.” Casey swallowed hard. “I didn’t want to ever disappoint you. Especially since I got to live, and your only son didn’t.”

A chill swept through Kate at her precious daughter’s revelation. Had she felt guilty about being a survivor all this time? “We would have loved Collin with our whole hearts, just like we love you. But you had nothing to do with his death. It was a fluke. You don’t have to replace him or be anything different because he didn’t survive.”

More tears trailed down Casey’s cheeks. “I—I just can’t do it anymore.” She drew in a shaky breath. “I wanted to go to medical school s-so you’d be proud of me. But I study day and n-night, and I still don’t have a 4.0. And I—I just got my final grades back in chemistry and physics, and they weren’t anywhere close. But I’ll retake the classes, I promise. And I’ll do better.”

“Oh, honey. This isn’t a tragedy. We only encouraged you because that’s what you said
you
wanted.” Kate felt her own eyes burn at her daughter’s obvious pain and disappointment. “We want you to follow your heart, and do what makes you happiest. If med school isn’t what you want, we wouldn’t dream of encouraging you to try.”

“R-really?”

“And the next time your dad wakes up, I promise that he’ll say the exact same thing. Cross my heart.”

J
ARED AWOKE
when Kate returned from the sheriff’s office an hour later. “I hear there was some excitement up here,” he rasped.

She took the chair next to his bed. “A little more than I like, believe me. How’re you doing?”

“Not as groggy.” He nodded toward an IV stand that had been brought into the room while Kate was gone. “They’ve brought me a PCA pump so I can control the pain meds myself.”

She reached for his hand. “I’m just so thankful to see you awake. Sylvia and Casey will be back in a half hour or so—they’ve been worried, too.”

“Casey’s here? And my
mother?
”

“And your sister’s plane gets in late tomorrow morning, though she’s on standby hoping for an earlier flight. Believe me, you gave us quite a scare. Are you up to hearing about it?”

Jared nodded. “I don’t remember much from the last couple days. Just bits and pieces.”

“Do you remember Patty coming to the legal clinic?”

He frowned, thinking back. “She wanted a restraining order and a divorce.”

Kate nodded. “The sheriff has interrogated her husband. He found out that Clark had threatened to kill her, so apparently she came back to you yes
terday, pleading for help to get to her sister’s place down in Madison.”

“I remember…” He rolled his head against the pillow in frustration. “I remember she’d been shot, but she refused to go to the sheriff or a hospital. Said she needed distance fast or she’d be dead for sure. She planned to contact the authorities in Madison.”

“Clark confessed to breaking into my clinic and making the threatening phone calls. He was furious when he found his wife was seeking legal advice from you, and he was on a quest for revenge. He also confessed to shooting Patty and to running your SUV off the road. He seems to have a pretty strong policy about not leaving any witnesses alive.”

“Careful guy.”

“Until he wiped and ditched his unregistered throw gun after he shot her. That was the weapon she grabbed and brought with her. Another mistake was letting me make a final phone call to the clinic. Amy caught on and alerted the sheriff’s department.”

“Smart girl.”